COMMUNITY INTERVENTION TRIAL FOR SMOKING CESSATION (COMMIT) - CHANGESIN COMMUNITY ATTITUDES TOWARD CIGARETTE-SMOKING

The success of the Community Intervention Trial for Smoking Cessation (COMMIT) in changing smoking attitudes is examined by testing two prim ary hypotheses: (1) the priority of smoking as a public health problem increased more in the intervention communities than in the comparison communities, and (2) norms and values that support non-smoking increa sed more in the intervention than in the comparison communities, One c ommunity within each of 11 matched pairs was randomly assigned to rece ive a 4-year (1989-92) community-based smoking control intervention, C ommunity attitudes towards smoking were measured primarily by cross-se ctional surveys in 1989 (n = 9875) and 1993 (n = 14117) but a cohort ( n = 5450) also provided attitude information. The main trial effect wa s on heavy smokers in the intervention communities who showed signific antly snore change in their beliefs about smoking as a public health p roblem, Despite the absence of an intervention-comparison difference, the magnitude of change in community-wide norms and values was related to the level of smoking control activities, In the cohort, light-to-m oderate smokers in the intervention communities came to have: stronger beliefs about smoking as a serious public health problem, COMMIT's im pact on the beliefs of heavy smokers about the seriousness of smoking as a public health problem has important public health implications.